[ENnies] WotC on the outs

[ColonelHardisson]

Yep. I missed Unknown Armies and had Spaceship Zero taking the gold. Other than that, there wasn't anything else I didn't miss. No offense, but the age of some products and the overrated hype of others likely influenced voters' opinions. I just wish I was that good with the lottery.

I'm not trying to dis the winners because I truly do believe they are quality products. I am in no way trying to attack them and do not feel that I am. The whole point of my arguments is the trends that I have seen at both this and last year's awards. Is there a problem with something because of the trend? Perhaps. Is it more likely that the winners were just damn good products? That is also likely and quite probably the case. I'm just asking that all things be taken into consideration when looking for ways to make the Ennies even better. That's it. Nothing more and nothing damning about the winners.

I've mentioned this a couple of times, but perhaps it got lost in the numerous posts above - I hope that even, perhaps I should say especially, the most unhappy of the d20 publishers should be posting to this thread. Have you contacted the ones you are aware of with a link to this thread? We really need to have as much feedback as possible in order to improve the awards. Even if the feedback gets heated, I see it as a good thing, and is perhaps the hallmark of any type of fan-based endeavor.

 

[Ghostwind]

The publishers who had objections are indeed aware of this thread and I will leave it up to them to respond. It has been made very clear to me that I should have never even broached the subject since more than one person, whom I admire and respect, has taken offense and resulted in a loss of friendship and/or respect. So with that, I leave further discussions of changes to others and bow out before more misunderstandings result. In the big scheme of things, it isn't worth it. At all...

 

[ColonelHardisson]

In my opinion, the Ennies should strive to be more than just a fan award based upon a small community (yes, in the bigger picture of gaming, it is a small community) of online gamers who share a common love. It should ultimately become an award that inspires the entire d20 industry (or potentially the RPG industry depending on the future) to go for the gold, so to speak. It should welcome the votes of all gamers and not just those who elect to hang out at EN World. But that's just my opinion and probably not one shared by many others here.

"Opinion" may be the key word here. When it all is boiled down, only one opinion about what the ENnies are or should be matters: that of Morrus. He has worked to make the ENnies as fair as is possible. His vision of what direction to take the ENnies may differ greatly from what anyone else here envisions.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

The publishers who had objections are indeed aware of this thread and I will leave it up to them to respond. It has been made very clear to me that I should have never even broached the subject since more than one person, whom I admire and respect, has taken offense and resulted in a loss of friendship and/or respect.

I hope that's not true. I imagine that it'll blow over after the requisite amount of time we usually fight about the ENnies

As I said above, I hope even the most unhappy publisher posts here about the subject. The ENnies cannot be improved closer to the point where it satisfies the most people if the people who could tell all of us what is wrong don't speak up. Let me say this to the publishers who were unhappy: the ENnies are your awards too; you need to help improve them.

So with that, I leave further discussions of changes to others and bow out before more misunderstandings result. In the big scheme of things, it isn't worth it. At all...

Hey! Don't do that! The discussion about the ENnies, both pre-and post-show, is traditionally heated, at times. It wouldn't be a fan-based award without some heat!

 

[jgbrowning]

Just a few comments and opinions about various ideas floating around on this thread.

1: I think Morrus has found a way to control the 400-800lb gorillas with his voting system. There is simply no way that MMS:WE could have got gold over Book of the Rightous, Book of Taverns, or Requiem for a God if the votes were heavily weighted due sales/market penetration, or popularity of company/author. I hope this quells concerns about only a few companies taking-over the awards. If a few companies win a lot of awards, I think it shows that those companies are putting out good stuff, not that they're popular.

2: As stated elsewhere, and better, I don't think WoTC should be allowed to enter non d20 system games for a d20 system award except for the non-open categories and for art/layout (which is system independant).

3: Personally, the expense of entering the awards is much less than the benefit received. I'd rather have the awards remain independant of an (pay to enter) acadamy or corporate sponser. I'd like the control of the awards to be in Morrus's hands or whoever he appoints. Now if a big name company is willing to subsidise the costs, that would be awesome.

4: I don't think an electronic product should be allowed to enter "best electronic product" and "best free product." I think anything that is free should be only in the free category or in the the art/layout categories.

My opinion is probably biased (still slaphappy that everyone thought so well of MMS:WE), but I think the awards are well done, and given the strength of the community feedback, should continue into being the most prestidigious gaming awards.

joe b.

 

[kingpaul]

4: I don't think an electronic product should be allowed to enter "best electronic product" and "best free product." I think anything that is free should be only in the free category or in the the art/layout categories.

Why do you think this? Not all electronic products are free.

 

[jgbrowning]

Why do you think this? Not all electronic products are free.

I think that, if an electronic product is free, it should only be allowed in the free product category and not in any others (excepting art/layout). Generally this is because I think people think more favorably about a free product than a for pay product. I think people consider value-for-expense when determining the overall quality of a product.

joe b.

 

[Vocenoctum]

2: As stated elsewhere, and better, I don't think WoTC should be allowed to enter non d20 system games for a d20 system award except for the non-open categories and for art/layout (which is system independant).

The problem there is, Wizard's products are excluded simply because they're Wizards. They don't have to do the OGL, and therefor can't qualify.
For an example though, does 3.5 edition count as D20? It IS the OGL, so it's got to count for something in the grand scheme, nay?

I don't follow all the Ennies stuff. Maybe broaden the number of entries, and add a 3rd place as well. If each company can only enter once in each catagory, even if Wizards got Gold, that would still have two places for the others. And I'm of the opinion that WotC wouldn't win the top spots either.
The prestige of beating out a WotC book would be fun, and of course the second/ third place if WotC took top spot could just say "well, it was Wizards, what did you expect?"

But, that's just me. From reading the forums, I don't think WotC is so universally loved as to truelly be the 800 lb gorilla.

 

[EricNoah]

My own personal thoughts on various topics:

1) I very much like the amount of "sway" the general public has, and I think that the fact that they elect judges, and the judges get to read everything, and then the judges present nominees and the fans vote -- I think all of that is right on and should continue.

2) I would not be in favor of limiting how many categories a given product, or a given publisher, could enter.

3) I would like to have seen more WotC presence this year and was a little surprised at how many categories were not open to them. As I said earlier, I'd like to see the art and cartography categories opened to all.

4) I would not be in favor of a "bronze" or other level of award. I did like the silver, it was cool getting to recognize twice as many products, but I think beyond that it begins to get diluted.

5) I'm wondering if discussion of ENnies funding is premature. Let's wait and see if Russ has some concerns in this area before we get too worked up over that.

6) I thought it a little weird that games that weren't d20 system based were in some of the categories. Now, for a category like Best Accessory, I can see the inclusion of system-neutral materials, that's not an issue for me. I just don't feel like I know where the "boundaries" of the awards go in certain categories.

7) I would like to have other alternative voting schemes examined. For example, I felt that it was odd that you could rank 3 items and say "I don't know" to 2 items in a category. To me, it seems that if you don't know 2 of the 5 items in the category you should just skip the whole category. But again, I only see one potential problem and don't have an adequate solution so some examination is in order here.

 

[EOL]

As I said above, I hope even the most unhappy publisher posts here about the subject. The ENnies cannot be improved closer to the point where it satisfies the most people if the people who could tell all of us what is wrong don't speak up. Let me say this to the publishers who were unhappy: the ENnies are your awards too; you need to help improve them.

I guess I'm a tiny bit unhappy (mostly about the fact that I had a post nearly done and then I somehow hit the back button and lost it. *sigh*) I have to confess that I mostly feel that it's inappropriate to comment because it would come across as whining or that I'm being a sore loser (especially since I didn't even get nominated. ) But if I was going to throw my two cents into the ring I think there is one big issue I would like to see addressed (there are some minor issues as well but I don't think they're "systematic"):

The category criteria are unclear.

Right now some but not all of the categories list examples of what products might fit under that heading. To take my own example I entered DireKobold.com in the Electronic Product category. The guidelines were as follows:

Best Electronic Product -- electronic products for the purpose of these awards are defined as e-books or documents available as downloads (usually, but nor necessarily in PDF form); this category does not include applications or software. Note that electronic products may also be entered into any other categories which apply.

The problem with this statement is it only gives some examples it doesn't give any guidelines for what criteria are going to be used to choose who gets nominated or who the winning entry should be. For some categories like best cover art this is probably fairly self-evident, but for a category like best electronic product or best aid or accessory I think an outline of the guidelines would be nice, something like:

Best Electronic Product -- Entries will be judged based on how effectively the product made use of the elctronic medium secondary considerations such as art, writing and editing will also be considered. Software packages which need to be downloaded or installed should not be entered.

Now I'm not saying that those should be the actual guidelines for the Electronic Product category but having some idea of what criteria are going to be used (or perhaps "should be used" in the case of the public) would not only make entering the ENnies easier but it would make voting on them easier. I think I hoped that the example category I gave above was the one that was being used, because I think I would of had a pretty good shot. As it turns out looking at the actual category guidelines I wasn't even sure if I'd entered my product in the right category.

Overall I'm actually pretty pleased with the ENnies and very, very appreciative of the job the judges did, and the complaint about the category criteria is in the scheme of things a minor issue, but you did ask.